Go to the List of Taxa You Should be Familiar With

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II. MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. William Smith worked out:

a) the principle of superposition
b) the principle of biotic succession
c) the Ornithischia and the Saurischia
d) the principle of cross-cutting relationships

a) the Moenkopi and the Karroo
b) the Morrison and Solnhofen
c) the Chinle, the Atlantic Rift Zone, and the Ischigualasto
d) the Hell Creek, Keuper, and Karroo

a) 28 % of our atmosphere
b) limestone
c) < 1 % of our atmosphere
d) produced by photosynthesis

a) some of the members share different common ancestors.
b) some of the descendants of the common ancestor of the group are not in the group.
c) the common ancestor or the group is not within the group.
d) the common ancestor and all of its descendants are within the group.

a) a tendentious ankle and a recapitulated temporal
b) live birth, hair, warm blood, and nursing with milk
c) double rooted teeth and squamosal-dentary jaw joint
d) a single temoral opening

a) Polar Early Jurassic tetanuran
b) Pangean Late Triassic ceratosaurian
c) Tropical Early Jurassic carnosaur
d) Marine Triassic nothosaur

a) The Glen Canyon Group and the Atlantic Rifting Zone
b) The Lias and the Falla Formation
c) The Glen Canyon Group and the Lufeng
d) The Ischigualasto and Chinle

a) Large size and weight
b) A perforated acetabulum
c) Three toes on the foot
d) Being ancient and extinct

a) Early Jurassic
b) Cretaceous
c) Early Cenozoic
d) Late Triassic

a) a mesotarsal ankle joint.
b) an ankle with many small bones flexing smoothly at a variety of places.
c) an ankle with a joint between the astragalus and calcaneum.
d) a tendentious ankle.

1. Why is the sail-backed animal Dimetrodon from the Permian of Texas not a dinosaur?

 
2. What are the main differences between the Ornithodira, Ornithischia, and Ornithosuchia?

 
3. Why is the saurischian triradiate pelvis not a shared derived character which defines the Saurischia?

 
4. Where would you look for dinosaur fossils and why?

 
5. How is limestone (= calcium carbonate = CaCO₃) related to the greenhouse effect?

IV. SHORT ESSAY

PREPARE A SHORT ESSAY ON ONE OF THE FOLLOWING TWO QUESTIONS*:
 

1. Given the cross-section of rock strata exposed in a canyon wall below, outline the history of the area, stating the various basic stratigraphic principles you used and stating the geological periods to which the rock unit belong. The intrusive diabase give a potassium-argon date of 200 million years.

2. There are two main types of ankles seen in the Archosauriformes that are also shared derived characters for several important groups. Define the ankle types, compare and contrast their functionality and the groups they define.
 
 

*Other possible topics could include: the carbon cycle; the different groups of suchians; the different types of skull openings; Herrerasaurus; tetrapod postures.
 

V. DINOSAURIAN RELATIONSHIPS

Fill out the following cladogram with the characters and taxa listed below. Place the number of each character next to the node in the cladogram that defines the taxon and put the taxon name above the appropriate bracket.
 
 

CHARACTERS 1. Amniotic egg 2. Backward pointing pubis 3. Crurotarsal ankle 4. Loss of palatal teeth 5. Mesotarsal ankle 6. No unique derived features 7. One temporal fenestra low on skull 8. Open acetabulum 9. Skull with antorbital opening and upper and lower temporal openings 10. Twisted and enlarged digit 1 on hand 11. Very elongated wing finger 12. Suborbital fenestrae 13. Hard shell covering body

VI. DINOSAURIAN ANATOMY

You will be asked to label the bones on a drawing of a skeleton much like, but not the same as, the one of Euparkeria you were handed out in class.

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